Archers get first crack at Pa. bear

Wayne Potts hunted bear for 40 years before he finally got one in 2011.

KENT JACKSON

Wayne Potts hunted bear for 40 years before he finally got one in 2011.

Last year, he took another bear. "I got lucky," the Drums resident said.

His success the past two seasons mirrors results of bear hunters in Pennsylvania.

Hunters downed 4,350 bears in 2011, a record year. Last year hunters scored 3,632 bears, the third-highest total on record.

Across Pennsylvania, bear can be found in a variety of locales. Last year, hunters took bear in 56 of the state's 67 counties.

In Monroe County, hunters brought home 108 bears, including one weighing 652 pounds that Timothy J. Moffett downed in Middle Smithfield Township.

Hunters took 100 bears in Luzerne County — among them a 360-pounder — while a 445-pound bear was one of the 67 bears downed in Carbon County. The take in Lackawanna County was 37, the largest weighing 356 pounds, and Schuylkill County hunters bagged 39 bears, one of which weighed 384 pounds.

In archery season last year, hunters killed 262 bears.

Taking a bear with a bow or crossbow during archery season, which runs through Friday this year, requires a bear to come within range of the hunter.

Bob "Ski" Bugaiski, president of the Hazleton Archery Club said bow hunters generally wait for bears to draw within 25 yards of them, near enough that they can kill rather than graze the bear.

"A wounded bear becomes a very dangerous animal," Bugaiski said.

Leo McHugh, a member of the archery club, has taken two bears with his bow.

One of them started walking up the steps to his tree stand before McHugh released his arrow.

Both those hunts, however, were in New Brunswick, Canada, where hunters legally can set bait to draw bears closer. In Pennsylvania, baiting bear is illegal.

The rifle bear season starts on Saturday, skips Nov. 24 and resumes from Nov. 25-27.

Depending on the Wildlife Management Unit hunted, an extended bear season overlaps with rifle deer season, which is when McHugh downed his Pennsylvania bear a few years ago.

"We were hunting as a group. A couple guys were walking to drive deer, and this bear came running into me. It stopped perfectly," McHugh said.

While McHugh sees a deer practically every day that he spends hunting, bear don't come into view that often. "I hunt a lot and usually see one or two bears all archery season," he said.

A disabled Vietnam veteran who retired from the Tobyhanna Army Depot last year, McHugh made a change for this archery bear season.

Potts, too, plans to try hunting for bear this archery season even though he never previously bow hunted for bear outside Canada. He is more enthused for the start of the rifle bear season on Nov. 23 because his daughter, Kalina, 15, will join him.

Father and daughter already have enjoyed watching a mother and three cubs while they were hunting deer last year during archery season.

"The cubs were jumping on her back and climbing the tree. They were wrestling. Not many people get to see that," Potts said.